It's been a few weeks since I made a post in this recurring thread. As I mentioned before I recently purchased a new gaming PC as my eleven year old PC was really showing its age. For many years I've been playing Game Pass games on an Xbox Series X but acquiring games for this inevitable new gaming PC.

I may have overdone it with games recently...

Recently finished playing

• Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 (on PC Game Pass): This is the best JRPG (actually French-RPG) that I've played in a very long time. The music, voice acting, story, overall delivery, characters, tone and world are all fantastic. It's all so well linked together and compels you to keep playing (in-between life and its responsibilities) until you finish.

  Each character is completely different in combat and has many different ways that you can build/play them. The combat system is designed with many different ways for the player to exploit it and feel really powerful and a lot of these come from synergies between different characters' builds. The third character in particular seemed very strong.

  My only complaint, and it's a big one, is that dodging or parrying enemy attacks with timed button/key presses is mandatory. This works really well for story reasons but it makes the game inaccessible to casual players. I personally used a mod to extend the dodge window so that I could play through the story. After a certain point you could build an overpowered team and it wouldn't matter so much but the player has to reach that point.

  Despite the QTEs I ever so strongly recommend this game and also recommend that you completely avoid searching about it online lest you have the story spoiled.

• Her Story (on Steam): You interact with short clips of interview footage via a police system. To access these clips you need to enter any word from the clips dialogue into the search system but only a maximum of 5 results are shown. I used the Note system in the Steam overlay to carefully document interesting words to try. You'll uncover the story only this way (do NOT search on internet before you play it).

  Wow - this game was really intriguing and I couldn't put it down until I finished. I just wish that I hadn't started playing it at 10pm. I strongly recommend it.

• Jack Move (on Steam): I played through the first two thirds of this on Steam Deck ages ago but came back to finish it on my new PC. An interesting spin on Final Fantasy X's combat system with a single playable character in a cyberpunk setting. I believe this was mostly made by a single person. The cyberpunk spin on combat is fun but like most turn-based games the challenge quickly evaporates.

  My main complaint is that the final boss fight is needlessly long. Despite that I recommend it for a short playthrough.

• Brotato: Premium + Abyssal Terrors (on iOS): The base game is absolutely fantastic and the DLC has decent additions across the playable roster and itemisation. This is genre-adjacent survival auto-shooter to Vampire Survivors just far better.

  I strongly recommend this game on PC but I strongly recommend against buying it on phone. When I reinstalled it on iPhone I lost the DLC. The publisher ignored my emails to their support and Apple refused to help me because I purchased it over 90 days ago.

Games finished in an earlier thread with write-ups in that thread:

• Avowed (on PC Game Pass)
• Deathloop (on Steam)
• Atomfall (on PC Game Pass)
• Far Cry 5 (on PC Game Pass)

Games finished even earlier that were brilliant but with no write-up:

• Inscryption (on Xbox Game Pass)
• Dungeons of Hinterberg (on Xbox Game Pass) following a recommendation on Tildes

Currently playing

• The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered (on PC Game Pass): It's a little strange that a game that was originally released five years before Skyrim is overall that much better. I guess I shouldn't be surprised because Fallout: New Vegas and even Fallout 3 are far superior to Fallout 4.

  I've played past the first oblivion gate in the main storyline, some of the thieves storyline and many side quests. From what I've seen so far the thieves storyline is a lot better than the Skyrim alternative. I haven't encountered the other factions but I've heard that they're better too. I would say that Skyrim is a flashy theme park whereas Oblivion is a somewhat dated RPG.

  I'm playing a spell-sword Breton which is essentially both a melee warrior and a spellcaster and that's how combat has been for me. Unlike Skyrim you don't equip spells into your left/right hand so you use them alongside regular combat gear. I don't feel like a jack-of-all-trades like one does in Skyrim and the combat has been tricky. I parked this when Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 was released but intend to play it on and off alongside whatever other game I pick up next.

Stopped playing

• Far Cry 3 (on PC Game Pass): I've heard this game very strongly recommended and the introduction story and setting are really interesting. Unfortunately I didn't play it when it was released and the game's user interface and experience has aged very poorly. I wanted to continue playing but it was difficult to live with the UI.

• Far Cry 4 (on PC Game Pass): Despite only releasing 2 years after Far Cry 3 this game has aged a lot better. The user interface/experience is far superior to Far Cry 3 although still flawed (and the map has incorrect information on it). The story and setting are interesting and I technically finished the game through its easter egg ending that's available in the prologue. I stopped playing because there's a lot of options and I only have so much time to play games.

• Indiana Jones and the Great Circle (on PC Game Pass): Everyone seems to love this one. It certainly seems technically well built with impressive visuals and that Indiana Jones feel to gameplay. I parked this pretty early on in the Vatican. I do intend to return but it's not a priority for me at the moment.

• Civilization V Vox Populi (on Steam): I played a much older version of this many years ago on my older PC. I gave into temptation and installed the latest version on my new PC. With a much more capable PC the time between turns is far smaller. I could easily have played this for the next few years so I deliberately parked it so that I could play other titles.

• Nova Lands (on Steam): I'm a big fan of Forager for some casual gaming when I have some time to spare. Nova Lands seems to be heavily inspired by it and also by some automation-esque games with drone automation. It seems like a good game but the quality-of-life features that Forager has are absent to push you to use drone automation. Personally for me I'd rather play Forager.

• Nomad Survival (on Steam): Is this better or worse than Vampire Survivors? I'm not sure but it certainly seems very heavily influenced by it. I feel that Brotato is overwhelmingly a better take on survival auto-shooters and so I couldn't stick with Nomad Survival.

• Balatro (on PC Game Pass): I'd seen a lot of positive discussion about this game online so I gave it a try. It's a lot of fun and has almost nothing to do with poker.

• Age of Mythology Retold: Immortal Pillars (paid DLC on PC Game Pass): I'm a huge fan of both the remake of, and original, Age of Mythology. The remake base game features four completely different factions (Greek, Norse, Egyptian and Atlantean). Each faction has completely different units, buildings, gods and playstyles. Each of them then has three major gods that you can choose for variations which basically equate to the differences between different civilizations in normal Age of Empires games. The base game contains two high quality campaigns that cover a long storyline where you'll play as all major gods across all factions.

  This DLC adds a fourth faction: Chinese and a campaign to play as them. I played through the first scenario of the campaign but it didn't seem to match up to the quality I've come to expect from the game with low-quality voice recordings and a few other technical hitches. Despite that I may give it another chance and play through the second scenario if/when I get bored of my other backlog items or feel an Age of Mythology itch.

• Viva New Vegas Extended (Fallout: New Vegas): - Every couple of years I check out the latest version of the Fallout New Vegas mod guide/list Viva New Vegas. There is a base version which tidies up New Vegas and an extended version which makes significant changes to the game. I installed everything in both versions. It's a little strange seeing great lighting and weather with very dated textures.

  This version adds a lot of content and also a lot of combat encounters. When combined with Lone Star this makes the game quite difficult. Whilst I would recommend the extended list I'd suggest skipping Lone Star if you're not very familiar with the game as the combat on the way to Novac was tough. This really is the best version of the best game of all time. I've only made it as far as Novac in this playthrough. I could easily have played this for a solid month so I deliberately parked it so that I could play other titles.

Plan to play soon

• Kingdom Come Deliverance (freebie on Epic Games)
• Eternal Threads (on Steam)
• Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order (on PC Game Pass)

I was watching ConcernedApe (Stardew Valley creator) doing a podcast with Bobby Lee (he said it was his first!). It was honestly fascinating to see Bobby Lee absolutely STARSTRUCK talking with him.

Anyways, one guy asked him what game he was playing and he mentioned Nubby's Number Factory, I looked it up and boy is it addictive. I played it a couple of hours this weekend and it was very fun!

Apart from that, I'm still trying to beat A19 with Silent in Slay the Spire... still failing miserably. :')

Continuing on my Legend of Heroes "Trails" series JRPG-a-thon. In last week's post, I said that I had started "Legend of Heroes: Trails from Zero" (Steam). This is a 2-game arc, and I get the feeling this first entry will be like the first entry of the "Trails in the Sky" 3-game arc.

I say that because I'm at least 20hrs in and it still feels like nothing has been revealed. I'm still in Chapter 1 (there was a playable prologue section) and the party is still trying to get their bearings in this story. They're brand new, rookie police, still on their initial missions/quests.

That not to say it's not interesting, because it is. After I post this, I'm probably going to play some more. But I'm not going to beat around the bush; it's slow.

However, having played the first arc in this series, and also having played parts of the next arc, "Trails of Cold Steel" (I played them out of order, because they were released out of order in the West), I know that's how it goes in this series. "Cold Steel 1" was basically the same. A whole game that's dedicated to simply setting up the story, the relationships, etc. It wasn't until was "Cold Steel 2," which I haven't completed, where things really picked up. So I'm expecting the same here.

Though maybe it'll surprise me and the big bad and their plans to destroy the world will be revealed so soon. (Press X to Doubt.)

Related, but I was playing with the recording/clipping features of the Steam Deck, so here are some clips I took. Some quick peeks of the game. Pretty typical JRPG from the 2010s.

• Running around a mountain path
• Cutscene, revealing some lore (and JP voiceacting)
• Werewolves?

Another weird week.

Tildes Archipelago (Dark Souls 3)

I joined in the Tildes Archipelago run (thanks so much for organising @lapbunny!) it was good fun to play on a larger multiworld game. I'm not sure if it was good/bad rng or not but I got all my cinders of a lord in the first 3 hours lol. So the game became "how early can I go win?". Well it was to test my skill as a player. I think I was level 46? But I did wimp out and +10 my weapon.
It was neat! Next time I'm going to force more of the game to not randomize at all to cut down the checks.
Would love to play again!

Soviet Republic: Workers and Resources

Playing this a little here and there, honestly like a couple hours. I could see myself playing this a lot but I need the right mood to get really into it.

Split Fiction

I finished this with my partner after like months (since it came out at the start of March!) and it's been difficult to play.
So the story isn't great, but none of Hazelight's games have good writing, infact you could argue their terrible writing is a bit of a staple at this point, but Split Fiction is bland.
I could see past that, but the gameplay is lacking for 90 percent of the game. I mean there's a small number of good little coop sections (I want to call them puzzles but that's brave). The rest of the game is just an endless running section of holding the thumb stick forward.
Don't get me wrong, the game looks amazing. The art team for the game knocked it out the park. The backdrops in the levels, the models, the animations, the textures all amazing! But that's not a game.

We loved It Takes Two because it was full of charm and the minute by minute gameplay was mostly engaging (there was a bunch of sections in ITT where you hold forward on the thumb stick but they were in the minority). But Split Fiction is just eh.

I wanted to love it but I really didn't like it. I'm kinda upset about it to be honest.

Tipston Salvage

This is a bit of a hidden gem, it has less than 100 reviews on Steam and I just gave it a go with my friend yesterday. It was fun! It's a 4 player couch coop game where you drive little cars around a scrap yard to crush metal and organise scrap. The levels have been engaging, lots of levels it seems, the polish is great. I would really recommend giving it a go if you like these kind of games to give the developer a bit of support.

I've got 55 hours in Blue Prince now and there still seems to be plenty to do. I'll hide things I don't think I can be sufficiently vague about, but tl;dr I'm having a blast and this is really scratching the detective/puzzle itch I'd been having this year.

I just found out I missed a line on a note that has completely re-contextualized a lot of memos and that has me slowing down in rooms I've seen dozens of times and triple-checking my assumptions. I'm also struggling to re-find a torn scrap of paper that I'm not even sure would be helpful but I've been properly organizing my notes into a journal instead of a stack of loose post-its and accurately recording things is important. I realize I could just be screenshotting everything but that feels against the spirit for me.

I'm happy to receive hints or guidance on my musings, I'm at a stage where collaborative solving may be necessary.

I have finished playing Master Detective Archives: Rain Code.

Overall, I quite enjoyed all the chapters before the last one. Each is a somewhat self-contained mystery with a satisfying setup / investigation / resolution loop and although some of the crimes / tricks are pretty wacky, none of it is totally beyond the realm of belief.

However, I did have some issues with the last chapter:

Having said that, I still enjoyed the game and there's a lot to like. The character interactions are fun to watch, there are a bunch of extra side stories to play after the main story (with new assets and playable investigation / deduction sections!) and the music is great - the main theme in particular is still stuck in my head.

I'm currently playing the Zero Escape series. This is a trilogy of puzzle / mystery games each involving a group of characters who are forced to play a death game while escaping from confinement.

I've already finished 999, the first game in the series:

• This game is more than 15 years old at this point, but visually it's aged really well due to the hand drawn art / animations and minimal Myst-esque pre-rendered object and background design.

• I really like the economy of the storytelling. The pacing is very fast and you can see everything in the game in about 10 hours if you're a fast reader. The game does have a 'novel mode' in addition to its adventure game mode which is more waffly and contains more detailed descriptions of character actions and thoughts, but I didn't find myself using this at all except in rare cases where it wasn't sufficiently clear what the characters were doing.

• This game has a 'route chart' where at any time, you can jump back to any point in the branching story that you've already seen before. This feature is a godsend and I wish every novel game with branching routes had it. It clearly shows what routes you haven't seen yet and even whether your character has the necessary information 'unlocked' to get to a particular ending, meaning you spend next to no time trawling through stuff you've already seen.

• The actual puzzles are all in the form of self contained 'escape rooms', much like real life escape rooms. You search the room, find objects and gimmicks and solve puzzles with the aim of unlocking the way out. The puzzles themselves are not particularly difficult, but it's quite satisfying to work them out bit by bit with pen and paper (which you'll often need to do).

• Overlapping the puzzles is a series of mysteries about who the contestants are, why the death game is taking place and a series of murders occurring within the death game itself. I found the exploration and gradual unravelling of these mysteries entertaining, but the actual solution to the main mystery

  as to the identity of the main antagonist was rather unsatisfying and hand wavey, with insufficiently clear rules about how the sci-fi setting worked.

I am currently playing Virtue's Last Reward, the second game in the series.

• This game was originally released for the 3DS / Vita and visually has not aged well at all. I wish they'd retained the hand drawn characters and pre-rendered backgrounds of the first game instead of going with low poly models and murky textured 3D backgrounds.

• The gameplay and setting are very similar to the first game (a good thing). The handy route chart is also back and much larger than before. You can also discover optional 'extra' solutions to puzzles in each escape room to unlock extra information about the story (actually these seem suspiciously critical to understanding the plot), but mercifully they aren't usually more difficult or obscure than the 'normal' solution that you need to progress.

• One thing which drives me nuts about this game is that every time the characters move to a different location (which is very frequently), you have to watch them move on the map and slowly open and close the doors along the way. It's no exaggeration to say that around 10% of the playtime for this game is watching doors open and close, and you can't speed this up. Was this originally done to mask loading times on the 3DS? Who knows.

This game is significantly longer than the first one, so I'll be taking my time and maybe only clearing a route or two per play session as I go.

Continuing along in Bannerlord, here are some more screenshots

Last week, I finished out with seizing a Vlandian castle, and pretty much immediately began a campaign of terror to weaken Vlandia, both in terms of its prosperity and military. Seizing the castle made them hostile again, but my constant incitement of rebellions meant their attention was split between the castle and two cities. Cities are far more valuable to hold, so I avoided having to conduct a defense of the castle and could instead spend the time creating and reinforcing my own military. I named a governor, laid out a queue of projects, and split my party into 4. Each party was given about 100 elite troops, and defended the villages of our little region while I trained up more troops and filled the garrison.

Turns out, you can access the Scheme Room from the castle, and Mallgoth's wife Yanagoth is just about perfectly suited for being its manager. The network we built inciting rebellions allowed me to spy on Vlandia, so when they formed armies I would dispatch assassins to either kidnap or kill the army captains. While those schemes unfolded, I traveled to the cities they held and along with rebellions, I poisoned the water, destroyed the food, and sapped the walls. At the same time, the Southern Empire declared war on Vlandia, so I was able to do this mostly unimpeded for weeks and continued dumping money on the cities when they went independent. Over time, Vlandia went from fielding multiple 1000+ armies to barely managing one at 400. I assisted their enemies' armies and ambushed their nobles, eventually filling the castle dungeon with over 30 of their commanders.

With Vlandia distracted and severely weakened, I decided to further set up an advantage in the Highlands by going after the Battanians. They'd been on the decline for a while, and had reached a point of no return (as in, no way they'd ever recover given the forces surrounding them). I took their king Caladog and beheaded him, then paid off his successor and let Vlandia crush what remained of their kingdom. This meant Vlandia became overextended - they held more cities but only barely. With the Battanians gone, their clans dispersed and were absorbed into the other kingdoms, and Mallgoth became the last surviving clan leader, the unofficial Last King of Battania.

I renamed our clan, from "Shitteeth" to a more lore friendly "fen Cythraul Uffar", which per some silly internetting might be Welsh for "hellish demon". I continued the campaign of wearing down the highland cities until eventually, three were in active rebellion all at once. At this moment, I saw the opportunity to jump higher - a city, Car Banseth, had less than 100 men in its garrison. On my own, I couldn't actually take the city (sieges are tough as shit), but together with my war parties, I could. I sent a messenger to the castle, and declared us a new kingdom: "The Kingdom of Grandis Larcennae". Then I called forth my parties and took Car Banseth.

Declaring oneself a kingdom is a big step. It changes a lot of relationships as well as diplomatic options for resolving conflict. I set up non-aggression pacts with anyone opposing Vlandia, and pushed the advantage by finding and assisting their armies. Mallgoth made his first friend, a rebel leader named Rhylan, who owned the city neighboring our castle. Vlandia eventually quelled the rebellions, but kept a lot of the leaders as governors, because every time they'd elect a Vlandian noble I'd have them assassinated. Rhylan was integrated into Vlandia but remained Mallgoth's friend, so though the city was technically hostile they didn't try to pull shit with us. On the rare occasion id encounter Rhylan in battle, I'd charge out and club him unconscious with a hammer to ensure he survived, and then set him free after we won/took prisoners, which preserved our relationship. Eventually, I snuck into the city and met with Rhylan. I gifted him the hammer, and convinced him to defect and join our kingdom, so his town became my town.

Then, one more opportunity opened up. Another town, Pen Cannoc, ended up in the same position as Car Banseth, so we sieged it and took it. This time, with their military pretty much destroyed, Vlandia's king Armund tried to lead a force to take it back. I charged out the gates with my war parties, massacred his forces in the field and took him prisoner.

At this point, Mallgoth has been such a scourge that just about everyone who began with Vlandia in this campaign is dead. Armund was the successor after Mallgoth beheaded their last two kings. I needed to ease up to manage our new cities so I tried to see, what would they offer for him, but the offer was shitty so I beheaded him too. Their fourth leader, Queen Firzana, offered to make peace and pay us 600k (an absurd amount) as war reparations. I took the deal, because I wanted to say Mallgoth got paid for being a terrorist. Despite being at peace, I continued to send out saboteurs and spies to ruin their nobles' reputations and keep their armies from forming, and fomented rebellion in the towns nearest us. I convinced two more clans to join, which added a total of eight more war parties to our military. By putting my war prisoners to work in the stone mines I've amassed a gigantic pile of money, and the castle + three cities are all growing quickly thanks to Mallgoth's companions being spec'd for good governorship.

At this point, Mallgoth is 50 years old. He has made enemies of practically every noble clan, and his only friends are his former companions + the three clans who joined us. I've decided, he will bear the weight of conquest, stain his hands forever with blood so that his daughter, Tyranae, will inherit a large and prosperous kingdom. She is 12, so we have at least six years to go hard and get all we can, provided age/sickness doesn't take Mallgoth out before then. My goal is to claim all of the former Battanian cities so that when she takes the throne, she will be the first queen of the Highlands, and together with her siblings and Mallgoth's advisers she'll scour Vlandia from the earth.

Been playing Helldivers 2 again lately in anticipation of the major update that's bound to happen this week, most likely the full illuminate invasion. Arrowhead set up a fun ARG involving getting this satellite back online through some puzzles solved through inputs on their discord server. It was a lot of dumb fun and pushed Discord's API to its absolute limit.

I've been playing Revolution Idle on steam. I like how this one doesn't bother with any kind of back story. You just want numbers to go up. Like most idle games, this starts out at one level, then a new level is introduced that is affected by progress in the 1st level, then a 3rd level is introduced that requires resources obtained in the 2nd level. I'm starting to get stuck in the 3rd level, there are starting to be too many variables and I think the game doesn't quite give the tools to diagnose why I'm getting stuck. I've started looking at guides, which tend to have advice on what to do but not why. It seems to be a little too much trial and error. I may quit this one pretty soon.

Another game I've been playing is Threes. This is a mobile game that has been around for a long time. It's a sliding tile game where every time you move, a new random tile is added. The goal is to stay around as long as you can, by merging similar tiles to prevent the board from filling up. This game spawned a different game called 2048, which is way easier and possibly more popular. I remember reading a post from the developers of Threes. They were very salty about how crappy 2048 is compared to Threes and how little strategy there is to beat 2048. And for sure, 2048 is much easier and much less polished. But also there is something to be said for a game that you can actually win sometimes.

Here an article that covers some of that Revisiting Threes, 2048, and the endless chain of ripoffs

The curious thing about this game is that I'm pretty bad at it, and I'm not getting better. A few years ago I used to consistently get scores over 20,000, and now I'm usually getting under 10,000. I still play it pretty regularly just because you can finish a game in a minute or two (especially if you are as bad at it as me). As with other games of this type, you have to keep the big numbers next to each other so that you can merge them later. As the game goes on, the random tile tends to have a larger number which makes it harder to manage the grouping. Maybe the RND changed in an update, but it's weird how terrible I am at it now. Lol.

Here's an online link for Threes. This is apparently a knockoff. Even though it has basically correct color scheme, it does not have the same music and lacks the cute sound effects and animations of the original. But I don't mind linking it here because maybe you'll like it and buy the actual one from the App Store or Play Store.

Here's an online link for 2048 if you want to try it. This is also a knockoff I guess. It seems slightly easier than the official version. You can find additional knockoffs of this game with different board sizes and different goals like "4096" or whatever.

Been an exciting little bit for gaming recently!

Deadzone Rogue
I have a friend who played Deadzone when it was an extraction shooter - he liked it, the movement is good, sounds are top-notch, the weapons feel nice to use, all good things. The extraction shooter got shut down (not sure why but if I know anything about extraction shooters it was either cheaters or low pop). A week or two ago he gets a notification that Deadzone Rogue is now active - it's a roguelike but set in space. He got me a copy so we could give it a try and you know what, it's really, really fun. There's a story mode, interesting game modes, there are tons of little story-related easter eggs to find around the world (and some of it is cheeky! I like it), the guns are great, there are augments and mods and upgrades you can do that let you customize your experience or focus different damage sources/types - it's just a lot of fun. We've been playing about a week and I've already logged 17 hours in it. I also think it's really cool that they adapted it into a different game mode rather than just abandoning it altogether. Definitely check out a stream if it sounds interesting to you, I have been surprised and delighted by how much I like it.

Dune Awakening Playtest
I got in on the playtest this past weekend and it was pretty good! I'm not sure I'll buy it, but it's definitely an interesting game and I enjoyed playing it. The character creation isn't bad, although it's unfortunate you spend time adjusting sliders and then they throw a full-face helmet on you (your face is visible during cutscenes). The mechanics are interesting, there's a research/building/crafting system that's fun to tinker with, you can build a base which I love doing. They call it a Survival multiplayer as oppose to an MMO and that is fair - you do not have to play with others, but you CAN. You will likely come across other people in the world, you will see their bases around the map, you'll bump into them at outposts, and apparently there's an end-game PvP mode that I didn't get to. I did get eaten by a Sandworm and I was mortified because I had JUST gotten the good gear and when you're sandwormed you don't get to collect your backpack. The world is gorgeous - the skybox particularly. The Survival aspect is manageable - health and stamina of course, but you also have to manage gear quality, energy for your base, exposure to the sun, and of course your hydration. You don't need to eat or sleep. Bases run on generators and are protected from other players by a shield which the generator powers - if your generator runs out of fuel, your base shield goes down - an interesting way to keep people engaged in the game. I didn't read/watch Dune, but I still found it easy to more or less track what was going on in this world and who my character was in it.

Fortnite
I give up. I really wanted to like the Star Wars season but I just don't. Looking forward to the new season where it's less likely that I will be gunned down North by Northwest style by a 12 year old in an X-Wing.

Elder Scrolls Online
Getting ready for the new update, which will introduce subclassing. I already have some ideas for adding a warden line to my templar healer (although I've heard healers are basically being nerfed... we'll see, I'm a healer main and that would be devastating to me) and templar lines to my other healers. This is a huge update and it's going to be chaos for the first few weeks when it drops. I've spent the last little bit getting skill points on my characters so I can unlock the subclass lines when it drops.

Oblivion Remaster
I'm working on it! I didn't play the original, but as a newly-adopted Elder Scrolls nerd (Skyrim in 2020, ESO beginning 2021) I wanted the experience. My friends speak very highly of it and I'm excited to be jumping in! Still early game (just closed my first gate) but I'm enjoying it so far. The skies are beautiful, and as a location - I remember always hearing about how beautiful Cyrodiil is but my primary exposure to it being ESO, I was always like it's beautiful, sure... but it's not Summerset - now playing Oblivion, I can say Cyrodiil is BEAUTIFUL. I'm really impressed with how everything looks. And the Deadlands locations, they did a really good job of making it look hopeless and scary, and the wells (wells? the spires of fire) within the gates are visually spectacular.

I recently started playing Nine Sols on Steam. It's a rather difficult Metroidvania with an anime feel to it and a really well done story. The game has some interesting mechanics, many of which are based on parrying. This generally wouldn't be my kind of thing, but I am enjoying it. The game has a very adjustable "story mode" to tone down the difficulty as well, which I haven't had to use yet, but is good to know that I have the option if I get too frustrated by hitting a difficulty wall (I am not a Souls-like fan).

I've been playing quite a lot of Abiotic Factor for the past couple of weeks, but I'm kind of wondering if I'm beginning to slow down with it. I've gotten to a point where I feel like I'm doing less exploration, my favorite part of the game and more often just carting resources back and forth to my various bases, which has me getting pretty bored overall.

I'll probably continue, as I don't know what else I want to play right now and it still is fun, I am enjoying the parts where I do get to explore new areas and see new things, but I just kind of feel like I might be in a lull. My brain is hinting at this, as I've been hunting for new things to play, specifically some sort of WW2 turn based game, though I haven't settled of anything yet.

Most recently played the traditional roguelike Path of Achra for my podcast on the genre.

I really love this game. From its unusual theme rooted in a fantastical version of Akkadian/Sumerian mythology, to the silly low-fi pixel art, to the totally insane synergies you can make with the builds. There’s a lot of subtle and smart game design ideas in Path of Achra, one of which is the search bar.

It kind of makes me mad that having a search bar to find abilities that sync with each other isn’t as common in other games like this. Rift Wizard and Tales of Maj’Eyal also have a mile long list of spells and synergies, but finding which ones work with each other can take a lot of planning to accomplish.

I think Path of Achra also returns traditional roguelikes more to their roots of coffeebreak length games instead of having runs than go for 20+ hours. TOME and ADOM (possibly also Nethack?) are examples where the game being half as short would make it twice as good. The streamlined focus in Path of Achra with not having to worry about a food clock or backtracking helps a ton for keeping the game moving forward and not getting bogged down into a grind or farm fest.

Path of Achra is almost like a parody of those archaic 90s roguelikes. The action speed in Achra is so fast that you almost can’t process what’s going on, versus bump attacking the same kobold for 60 seconds straight and moving on to the next one.

Really enjoy the game and I’m very much looking forward to the 4X design for its sequel in Lands of Achra.

The last time I posted, one month ago, I was playing Lingo .

I'm still playing Lingo. We've played for 60 hours and obtained 31 of the 42 achievements (a couple more are close, I feel). We have solved more than 1600 puzzle panels. Some of them were quite hard to find. Send help please.

Finished Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 on Friday night after 43 hours. This is the best video game I've played in a long time... maybe ever. I know that sounds ridiculous, but it's truly a masterpiece. I get that the dodging isn't for everyone, but man, there's so much to love here. The story, the music, the acting, the world, the combat, the art direction, it's just all so phenomenal. I've unfortunately been DNF-ing most games I start lately; however, I could not put this down. I still can't put it down - I immediately started a second playthrough and am almost done with act 1 again.

I played Expedition 33 on game pass, beat it, then bought the deluxe edition because it was the most money I could give to Sandfall (the developer). I know it's a AA game, but it blows my mind that it only costs $50 USD ($60 for the deluxe). It is easily worth the $80 price tag AAA games are likely getting soon.

The level of polish is incredible too - the worst (maybe only?) bug I've encountered is that sometimes after sprinting, your character will get stuck walking at the slowest speed, but this is fixed by simply sprinting again. That's it.

Some critiques so this isn't just gushing:

• The UI for pictos (mods) could be better, though it's far from terrible. They're all in one big list and once you've got 30 or 40 of them it can be a bit much. Thankfully the list is sortable in several different ways.
• I absolutely love the music but every once in a while (maybe 4-5 times total) it drowns out the dialogue.
• A select few enemy attacks are not telegraphed very well, though the vast majority are.
• A UI element telling you how many turns each buff/debuff/status effect lasts for would be nice.

I could keep talking about how fantastic this game is but that's probably enough for now. It might be my personal #1 of all time.

I just finished Ys Seven this weekend.

As a preface, I should note that the first Ys game I played was Origins, and then I liked it enough that I went on to play Oath, Chronicles, and Ark. Origins has become kind of a comfort game to me. I've beaten it with each of the possible player characters, and I'll periodically reinstall it and do a run-through.

So anyway, Seven was my first time playing one of the modern party-style Ys games. I'm not quite sure how I feel about the new style. I kind of didn't care for having to switch weapons for Adol or which party member I was controlling just to beat different kinds of monsters. Having certain monster types be such hard counters was kind of a drag. I mean, I get that they wanted to encourage switching things up and using the different party members.

But I also found my self spending more time in the menus, switching out party members and menus. Speaking of which, keeping all the characters equipped and trying to learn all the weapon skills for all the characters also meant a lot more menu time.

I felt like the additional complexity kind of lost some of the charming simplicity of just killing monsters as a single player character. I particularly missed things like in Origins and Oath where you have monsters frequently drop buff potions. Those buffs have a very short duration (maybe 10 seconds), but are stackable, and picking one up resets the timer for the entire stack. So they kind of like combo multipliers in arcade games, where you're encouraged to see how long and high you can chain them. It very clearly is intended to foster a fast and very aggressive play-style. For comparison, the fighting style in Zelda games tends to be kind of a duel balanced between attack and defense. Now picture Link hopped on meth, dashing from enemy to enemy, like a buzz-saw of destruction dismembering monsters almost explosively, and you kind of have the Napishtim/Oath/Origins era Ys game.

Regarding good things about Ys Seven, though, as an action RPG game with a party of three active members, I found myself strongly reminded of the old Secret of Mana game that I had as a kid, and drawing comparisons to that. I remember how the computer-controlled characters were always getting stuck on obstacles and I wouldn't be able to move on until I'd got them unstuck (either going back for them, or switching to controlling them and then moving them around the obstacle). Here, any computer controlled character that falls behind just teleports to catch up. It's slightly immersion breaking, but definitely the right call as far as smoother gameplay. I also noticed that the computer controlled characters had maybe a 90% damage reduction to help make up for artificial stupidity.

Another thing I really liked about it, was how it set the mood with the music and some NPC reactions towards the end of the game. I don't think I've ever seen a game do such a good job with a situation where all the NPCs throughout the land can see that apocalypse is imminent and face it with sort of a resigned hopelessness. I kind of got a vibe like the beginning of Ghibli's "The Wind Rises" and the end of "Rogue One".

Anyway, it was fun, and I'll probably go on to Celceta next, and then VIII at some point.

In the mean time, I've been replaying VVVVVV as a bit of a palate cleanser yesterday and today.

I'm still busy playing the Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy. It's an absolute chonker of a game, and incredibly good. I'm in the process of getting multiple endings, and so far the endings are... very different from what you'd expect. There are certainly more 'good' endings if you ask me, but it really depends on how you define 'good'. The story makes for some very interesting conundrums, the styles of Kodoka and Uchikoshi compliment each other so well in this setting.

One thing I absolutely want to compliment the devs for in general is the balls it took to make this game. It combines multiple genres in really unorthodox ways, and the budget must've been large. Normally such a setting would easily collapse under its own weight but it does not. In fact, it creates a certain depth that you'd struggle to find in other games.

If I had to describe the game in one word, it'd be 'bold'. And that's a deep compliment. I don't know whether it'll be my new all-time-favourite yet, but it's certainly high on the list. Just the amount of unwritten rules broken in it is amazing on its own.

Recently started playing The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. Finally upgraded my PC and it's powerful enough to emulate it and then some (1440p graphics mods go brrrr). It's been really fun so far! I've only been playing for a few hours so I'm basically just out of the tutorial phase, but I'm liking all the new mechanics added since BotW and the new areas are sick as hell. BotW was one of my all time favourite games so a game that's just more of that is exactly the kind of game I wanted to play.

Hoping I have enough time to play it going forward because my number one reason for not playing long games anymore is that I end up with a 2-week period where I have zero time to play anything and then I can't be bothered to pick it back up and try and figure out what I was doing.

A bit of a detour from the mostly single-player titles I've seen in this thread: recently, my interest in Overwatch has reignited, especially thanks to the new Stadium mode. For several years, even prior to the game's rebrand, my attention had drifted in and out, but this latest addition genuinely hooked me again.

This mode introduces a shop system reminiscent of something like League of legends's, but manages to do so without feeling overwhelming. Since I'm already familiar with Overwatch's heroes and core mechanics, I can comfortably dive straight into experimenting with perks, rather than feeling buried under countless new mechanics. It's been a great way to experience complexity without frustration, and has even helped me better understand the appeal of games like League, which previously felt daunting due to the sheer volume of characters and combinations.

It's refreshing to see Blizzard stepping up their efforts, probably driven by competition from Marvel Rivals. Matchmaking lately feels pretty balanced, hackers have become noticeably rare, and monetization, while not perfect, aligns pretty closely with industry standards these days. Balance has arguably been at its best point for several patches by now, so fine-tuned that even small adjustments dramatically reshape the meta. Although, I wonder if such delicate balance is truly the best or most fun for a game with over 40 unique heroes, although the recent introduction of the ban system into competitive modes seems like a step in the right direction.

Either way, it's encouraging to finally see genuine innovation and progress again after soooo many years of bad news and false promises.

Pd: SUPER hyped about Aqua! (New hero for season 18)

Balatro

I got the Completionist++ achievement on Steam. Stats.

Has anyone here mentioned yet that it's a good game? /s

So most recently I played a same called Eldrum: Black Sands. It's a primarily text based RPG for mobile. I really wanted to enjoy it. I was bored at first, then picked it up again last week and the second time it hooked me, but didn't last.

After a few days of on and off play, I found that while some parts of the gameplay were enjoyable, the game itself was not, and it left me disappointed that they don't tweak a few things to make it much better.

I enjoyed combat mechanics. It had an interesting near/far positioning system, special moves, and was fun when it was fun.

I REALLY enjoyed the world lore, what I saw of it. I find that a lot of text based games have an overly informal tone, sometimes outright breaking the fourth wall, but I really liked that Eldrum's narration was rich, evocative, and made me want to know more about the world. The writing never bored me.

But unfortunately, the game is broken for me. I'm between the enjoyable content, they've made some really poor choices (or I'm bad at the game, but you'll see similar comments to mine echoed on reviews).

1. No ethical characters, and few ethical choices. You begin having racked up debt with a dangerous cartel, who force you to do their dirty work. There are many options in the very early game to reject them, but all lead to immediate death. Thankfully reloading is easy.
2. A lot of one-shot encounters as you walk through rooms, and a lot of times you can only "succeed" at them by having invested in the right stats. You don't know what stars to invest in until you've lost a roll. You end up having to know the rolls in advance so you can plan the level ups around them. There's a lot of trial and error and save scumming, which I didn't enjoy.
3. It was just too hard. I felt like an NPC in a world of heroes. It was very hard to find winnable fights. Trial, error, and save scumming.
4. Adding to the difficulty, at some point in the game the cartel shows up and takes all of the money you'd earned. It's unnecessary and frustrating, given that you're already stretched thin in the early game.

I wanted to like it. I didn't.

But more than anything it left me with an unfulfilled desire for a high quality, story-rich text-driven rpg. Sometimes I think about making one.

Assassin's Creed: Valhalla
Yes, it's a slightly older entry in an over-extended (IMO) franchise, but I'd been meaning to try this for a little while. Someone I know was an historical consultant for the educational version of the game (Discovery Tour - Viking Age). It was ... well, if you've ever played an Assassin's Creed game, just imagine it with Vikings and there you go. It was fun for an hour or two while the main story was progressing, but after that I got to the main game loop and I can see hours of repetitive grinding in my future if I wanted to progress. So I don't think I'll bother.

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33
Wow. I've seen plenty of people post about this (here and on other threads), so I won't go into too much detail, but I love it. This is the first JRPG-style game I've played and, honestly, I was a little concerned that the turn-based combat wouldn't be for me. I couldn't have been more wrong. I appreciate the degree of strategy it brings to the game (because you can actually think about what move to make, rather than blindly button mashing - my go-to move in most action games) and the way it prevents me from cheesing the computer characters (á la Skyrim). I've seen some complaints and concerns about the quick time events (you have to press dodge/parry etc. at the right time), but I feel like it fits in beautifully with the rest of the combat system. Also, it gives you a way to avoid damage even if you are under-leveled or close to death, so it always feels like there's a chance to win. Excellent game.